Piezoelectric cantilever-pendulum for multi-directional energy harvesting with internal resonance

Abstract

Piezoelectric transducers are widely employed in vibration-based energy harvesting schemes. Simple piezoelectric cantilever for energy harvesting is uni-directional and has bandwidth limitation. In this research we explore utilizing internal resonances to harvest vibratory energy due to excitations from an arbitrary direction with the usage of a single piezoelectric cantilever. Specifically, it is identified that by attaching a pendulum to the piezoelectric cantilever, 1:2 internal resonances can be induced based on the nonlinear coupling. The nonlinear effect induces modal energy exchange between beam bending motion and pendulum motions in 3-dimensional space, which ultimately yield multidirectional energy harvesting by a single cantilever. Systematic analysis and experimental investigation are carried out to demonstrate this new concept.

Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting Solutions: A Review

“…Their principle is based on the arbitrary motion of a mass and is used for harvesting from very low frequencies (below 10 Hz), such as human motion. There are two free moving mass techniques: Free moving object—the harvester has a free moving object that can be suspended by a rope [ 155 ], a rod [ 156 ], or rolling inside a cage [ 157 ]. The design is simple and generates relatively high power, but the ball’s movements are unpredictable.…”

“…Free moving object—the harvester has a free moving object that can be suspended by a rope [ 155 ], a rod [ 156 ], or rolling inside a cage [ 157 ]. The design is simple and generates relatively high power, but the ball’s movements are unpredictable.…”

Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting from Suspension Structures with Piezoelectric Layers

“…At a certain point, it becomes more convenient to acquire vibration-based energy from suspension structures, which are independent of natural conditions. Vibration-based energy harvesting from suspension structures usually employs four mechanisms [ 6 ]: the piezoelectric effect [ 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 ], the electromagnetic effect [ 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 ], the magnetostrictive effect [ 23 , 24 ] and the electrostatic effect [ 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 ]. Compared to the other three mechanisms, the greatest advantage of piezoelectric devices is their large power densities [ 2 ], which are on par with lithium-ion batteries.…”

Modeling and analysis of piezoelectric cantilever-pendulum system for multi-directional energy harvesting

“…In reality, however, ambient excitations have components in multiple directions and may feature broad frequency bandwidth. For example, a device carried by a pedestrian is subject to accelerations in all three directions exhibiting aperiodic dynamics (Xu and Tang, 2015b). The power output of the traditional harvesters decreases significantly, if the excitation comes from directions other than the response direction or is off-resonance (Ando et al, 2013;Cottone et al, 2009;Shahruz, 2006;Su and Zu, 2013;Xu and Tang, 2015b).…”